The topic of Recovery at Speakerjam 2009 in Waverly MN

Good morning. My name is Patrick and I'm an alcoholic.

Umm, it's a pretty cool deal to be here on a Saturday morning at 9:10

before I got separated from alcohol on December 22nd of 2003 by 910 on a Saturday morning, I'd probably be having my second drink

and I don't have to live that way anymore. Through the grace of a loving God and a program of recovery,

particularly 12 steps.

When Dustin asked me to do this, I thought about speaking on recovery. What What does that look like?

I think it's important that we know what we're recovering from,

and that's where it gets a little dicey sometimes.

My experience with this disease has shown me that what I suffer from is a chronic, progressive, fatal illness,

and I didn't want to. I didn't want to come up against that for 30 years. I dodged that idea for a long time, and I dodged it to the brink of death. I'll get into my story just a little bit so you know that I qualify to stand here and talk about this.

But if something comes out of my mouth this morning that disturbs you

or makes you shift in your chair a little bit or just that, that is tough to accept. What I would encourage you to do is try to look for the truth in it

and delay your reaction aside to just have enough maybe composure or understanding that what we're dealing with here

is an illness that seeks to keep us in a state of delusion.

I believe the greatest weapon that that alcoholism and addiction has is its ability to tell me that I'm not quite in as much trouble

as I think I am.

Not too long ago, we had a speaker thing here that a man named Chris S spoke at. And one of the things that stuck with me, what he said was, you know, if you're here

and this goes out to the tables on either side, those of you between one and 90 days of sobriety,

is it possible that you're in more trouble than you think you are

around this disease?

And that's not a pleasant subject to discuss on a Saturday morning. That's not something that, you know, I wake up and want to go, hey, you know, Gee, I got a fatal illness. Wow, that's great, right?

But to achieve recovery, I think it's important that we understand what we're dealing with

and what the far end of this looks like. And I've got some experience with that. I watched my father die of alcoholism.

Umm, in my own experience was, you know, well, I'll get into that a little bit. I picked up a drink at 13 and something happened. Something changed. The world looked different. Basically, by the time the second beer hit the bottom of my belly, it was like, whoa, that's better. That's all I can tell you about that experience. Something, you know, when I encountered alcohol that the world looked different and, and it looked better to me.

And so

having had that experience, I thought, well, I want to do this again. And I did. I got, you know, knee walking drunk the first time I drank, I got sick, I drank some more. And on the way home, rolling home from that experience with alcohol, the

the thing that that came to mind was, geez, I want to do this again as soon as I can.

That's not a normal reaction to alcohol. Most people who have that sort of an experience

with alcohol on their first time don't touch it again for 10/15/20 years, you know? But I wanted to do it again as soon as I could, and I did.

I pursued drinking with it. It was a passion.

That's the best way I can describe it is that I went after it that that altered reality that I encountered was something that I desired and I, I continued to go after it. I'm not going to get into the blow by blow the drunk log because

you ain't gonna pay any attention to it. As soon as I start, you'll check out.

So what I will tell you is that you can Fast forward to to 2000 and and three on April 10th,

31 years later after that first encounter with alcohol. I'd been drinking probably between a quart and two quarts a day for 15 years,

and I suffered a heart attack as a result of D TS

umm, if if you're not familiar with what DTS look like at the stage I was at, you can. You can have seizures, you can have heart attacks, you can have stroke. I got up one Saturday morning. I hadn't eaten in a couple of days. I went down to a local restaurant and got something to eat. I made a mistake. I didn't put a drink in me soon enough that morning. Again, remember what I said earlier by 910 on on any given morning

I'd had by this time in my in the progression of the disease, I'd have had to have a couple of drinks

by this time or I'm in physical trouble.

That's where this thing can take you. If you're not there yet, you don't have to go there. You can, you can nail this thing earlier,

but but that was my experience. And so on this particular morning, I didn't get a drink into me soon enough. I started having the racing heart and, and I, I had a heart attack and, you know, I, I called an ambulance and they showed up and 40 minutes later the, the good doctors that Hennepin County Medical Center

had inserted a stent in my heart and saved my life. And I remember in the ambulance that I had a distinct thought kind of like that same one I had when, when I encountered alcohol. The thought and the ambulance was, is I'm never going to drink again. If I get through this, you know, it's the foxhole prayer. Get me through this one. I'll never drink again.

So they did the procedure.

Three days later, I was released from that hospital with an intense desire to not drink.

And about 12 hours after I got out of there, I was drunk.

I didn't know what I was up against. I didn't have a clue. I thought the desire to not drink, what would be enough, and it wasn't. And you know, it wasn't until I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's what I approached my talk from as a perspective of Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 Steps and the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And you know, if you're an NA member or CA or anything, God bless. Go whatever, whatever works for you.

But it's all based on those 12 steps on the wall there. And that's where, that's where I found recovery. But a man pointed out to me around this idea of what are we recovering from? He pointed out something in the Big Book

that, honestly, when I read it, it pissed me off. And it's this. The fact is that most Alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink.

Our so-called willpower becomes practically nonexistence. We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We were. We are without defense against the first drink. I didn't understand that day that I walked out of the hospital with an intense desire not to drink, that I didn't have any defense.

Later on, on the next page, it it explains that our defense must come from a higher power.

I didn't know that then and that's why I drank. For the next nine months, I continued to drink that one. That drink lasted nine months. I was washing my heart medications down every morning. I'm taking four or five meds, meds that I still take

and I'm washing them down with whiskey every day.

Made sense to me at the time. Life saving medicine in one hand, poison in the other. You know those little orange stickers they put on the prescription bottles that say do not take with alcohol? Those are for you.

I had done that doesn't apply to me, right? I'm different. But see, that's the power of an alcoholic mind.

One of the things that I have to understand that I had to really get in touch with in order to recover from this illness

was just how much trouble I was in here.

My head at that time told me that that was OK. It made sense to me.

Is it possible that your perception of your current circumstances might be an error?

That's a question that a man taught me early on in my recovery. Is it possible

that where you think you're at

might not be where you're at?

That's just a consideration for you to process.

It's a little bit uncomfortable sometimes, but I had to understand. So I drank for nine more months. I really made a kind of a committed vow to drink myself to death. I just didn't think it'd take so long or hurt so bad. And I broke gratefully. I broke

and through a series of circumstances and some some family members in my life, I got separated from alcohol on December 22nd

of of 2003. And I'm, you know, forever grateful for that day. I used the word separated from alcohol because that's what I was for about the 1st.

Well, I suppose 9090 to 120 days I was abstinent. I was not in recovery.

As a matter of fact, when I got separated from alcohol for that period of time,

things started. Initially they were better because I got a new pair of shoes. Somebody moved all my stuff into storage.

You know my immediate external issues got taken care of, right?

But then

what? A man later taught me

in Alcoholics Anonymous

is something that's described as a spirituality. That started to come back and I'll get into a little bit about what that is in a minute.

Um, because it's what it, it, what, it's what will drive you back to a drink.

Umm, I thought it was external problems. You know, I can't keep a job, they don't treat me right, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Go down the list of external issues. I thought that's why I drank and, and I process some of that stuff in my clinical treatment. But what I didn't understand is that I was suffering from something deeper and it was something that alcohol solved

and that alcohol really wasn't my problem. I didn't know this then, but my experience has taught me that that's what I suffer from today. Or can if I'm not spiritually fit.

So at about 90 days sober, I'm living in a halfway house. Things appear to be good. I'm 90 days separated from from alcohol and drugs.

I've got housing, I've got a cook that provides me with three meals.

You know, my needs are all taken care of. My suitcase is unpacked and my clothes are in a dresser. I really don't. I don't have to go to work, right? I don't have any of lifes responsibilities

and I'm pissed.

I don't like the people I'm living with, the staff of the treatment center that I was in,

who I now work for by the way, so recovery is possible.

I often said I'll get even with them. I'll I'll make them give me a set of keys and a paycheck.

But it But at that time,

you know, I didn't, I didn't want to hear anything. They had to stay. They were all full of you know what, right? They didn't know what they were talking about. When it came to me,

I was different.

Umm, 90 days separated from alcohol,

the poison that's killing me and it ain't getting much better. And I walked into one of my counselors offices and, and, and said,

you know, what do I do with this? Because I really don't care if your head starts on fire right now. I wouldn't hand you a glass of water. That's just the truth. That's the state I'm in. You know, you can all just take a fly.

And he looked at me and he smiled and he said, that's the first honest thing you've said to me in 90 days.

And I said, well, what do I do with it? He said I got a suggestion. He said I if I was you, I'd go pray.

Novel Ideal,

which I took as a suggestion and I did it that night and it didn't do anything for me.

I pray a lot today, but umm that night I didn't get any immediate relief, but it did begin for me a process of opening up my mind. The next day he, he asked me, you know, what are you doing with your sponsor in a a so well, not much. I call him a couple times a week. We talk he said, are you are you going through the book? And I said

the book and he said, yeah, the the the big book and, and I'm, I said, well, yeah, he's having me read it.

And I didn't understand at a time that what's contained in the 1st 164 pages of this text is a set of directions specifically on how to recover from alcoholism. It works for drug addiction, too. Just got to change some of the words around. I didn't get, I didn't know that, you know, at the time I needed to be taught.

And honestly, nobody was really coming forward in the meetings that I was going to at the time and saying let's sit down and and read this book. They were talking about the steps,

they were sharing some of their experience with the steps, but the sponsor that I had at the time wasn't a, a sit down and go through the book with you guy. So I ended up doing, you know, kind of coming back around to the to the powerlessness and unmanageability, that first step stuff

in treatment

and understanding it. You know, at 90 days, ain't it supposed to be better? And it wasn't. It sucked.

So I started doing some things differently. I started asking members of Alcoholics Anonymous what you do about that. And, and I, I started attending things like big book workshops and big book seminars. I, I did a couple of 16 weeks deals where they went through the 1st 164 pages show up once a week. They spent an hour and a half reading the book and I started to learn

about what real recovery was.

First thing I learned was what I had to recover from. Second thing I learned was how to recover and it was to follow the directions in the big book,

but I didn't know where those directions were. I when I read the big book, it seemed like a nice story

and, and I didn't know at the time that that it had a, a specific set of directions, which I'm now very familiar with and can help anybody with.

But at the time I didn't understand that and, and

I was a little bewildered as to why this, this internal condition

kept me from relating well to anybody. You know, I was isolated in treatment. I'm surrounded by people who share a similar condition, who are really looking out for me. And all I want to do is sit in my room and tell them to go to hell. Pardon my French, but that's really where I was at with it. So when I started on this process of recovery, one of the things that that my sponsor asked me about was, you know,

is it possible that that you're just trying to manage this thing and that that you're not the guy that should be managing it? And I, you know, yeah. OK, yeah, maybe.

And he said well there, you know, there are ways to do this. And what he did pretty quickly was it by a day 120, I had a four step written.

And you know, this is just my experience, but but when I wrote that four step, I began to understand really who my problem was. And it wasn't, and this still makes me mad, but it wasn't any of you,

and it wasn't my counselors, and it wasn't the guys I was in in the building with. By this time I was living in a sober house. Turned out it wasn't any of them,

it was the man that I was looking at the mirror every day.

I was the problem, my perceptions, the way I saw life,

umm, what I believe to be true. Which wasn't because, you know, I have an alcoholic mind that lies to me on a daily basis. It's been lying to me all morning

telling me things that aren't true,

and so in order to recover from that I had to accept who was responsible for where I was at when I was there. And that still sucks

to be honest with you. But the good news is, is when you know what you need to change,

you can change. And you can go to a power greater than yourself and ask for help, and you can go to people with experience in this thing and get that hope.

See, the thing that I did get was that

at with that four step was that I had semi. OK, here's the problem. Now what? Let's get a solution,

OK? And the solution came with, you know, admitting to God, myself

and another human being the exact nature of my wrongs. And as it turned out, what that looked like was I was selfish, I was self-centered, I was dishonest and I was fearful. And when I'm fearful, I defend. So I'm always fighting. I'm having problems with that currently. I got some health conditions that that have made me fearful. And the only thing I know to do is to fight. And that pushes me away from the good people in my life that

help. And, you know, I'm not proud of that, but I'm a human being. And that's five years downrange that my alcoholic mind is, is, is telling me lies, You know, is it possible that you're in a little more trouble than you think you are?

Uh, just a consideration. So that sponsor, he listened to my fifth step in, in, in one of the things that came out of that was, was this was, he looked me straight in the eye and he said, Patrick, you've really never had much of an, of an opinion about yourself, have you? And what he was getting at was that I didn't know who I was, that I'd been using alcohol and drugs to blot out the reality.

For so long that I had no clue as a 44 year old man where I was at or who I was.

Umm, and I wasn't real comfortable with that either. But you know, what's the good news? Well, I guess you can begin to learn at that point. See, the critical thing with alcoholism and drug addiction and recovery from that

is being willing to let go of everything you've ever believed

about yourself and life.

Open mindedness, willingness. Now see, that's, that's kind of a high standard. And nobody told me that when I came in. They kind of, they tried to ease me into that idea. And I'm not trying to scare anybody up here and I'm really not trying to to be hard on anybody or harsh.

But if you want a quality recovery, you have to open your mind up to the fact that maybe your way of doing things

isn't

what's going to work.

And maybe just begin to take some direction from people who have some experience

with what does work. And what does work is 12 step recovery. And what does work is, is following the directions in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and finding a Home group and getting a sponsor and getting involved. You know, when Dustin, Dustin and I were talking a little bit before, before I got up here and you know, we're having a talks on recovery and unity and service. Well, your recovery isn't going to work if you're not part of the Unity and the service thing.

You're going to be on a stool that's supposed to have three legs and it's only got one or two.

You know, you can work the steps and then not get involved in sponsorship and service and that right? And you can, you know, maybe not get involved in the unity like this.

What's that going to be like for you? You're still stuck with yourself.

So it's, it's interdependent, all these things. And, and, you know, that's a lot more than I bought that I signed on for when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and when I came to recovery, what I wanted to do was quit drinking.

You know, and now they're telling me all this other stuff and it's like, whoa, fellas, all I wanted to do was stop drinking.

So again, it's back to this theme of what are we recovering from?

Umm, and kind of the reason that I take this tact is that the big book of Alcoholics has, has, has taught me a few things. It's taught me everything I know about recovery and, and most of what I know about life, my experiences with the work, with the actual instructions that are in the book. And on page 92 it it it says in paragraph two it says

continue to speak of alcoholism is an illness, a fatal malady. Talk about the conditions of body and mind which accompany it. Keep his attention focused mainly on your personal experience.

Explain that many are doomed who never realize their predicament. Doctors are rightly loath to tell alcoholic patients the whole story unless it will serve some good purpose.

But you may talk to him about the hopelessness of alcoholism because you offer a solution.

I'm not up here to scare you.

I'm up here to tell you the truth.

And the truth is, is if you've come to an understanding at a gut level that you're an alcoholic or a drug addict,

you got nothing for this thing.

Your defense must come from a higher power. And to access that power, there are certain actions you must take.

And I know that's not a pleasant idea. And maybe that's not why you came here on a Saturday morning.

The good news is, is when I hit that that that hopelessness, that's when the hope showed up because I gave up and I started taking directions. You know, I was reluctant and I complained.

I didn't like it, but I did it. And that's why I'm standing here today with a really good life going on, on the outside of here.

One of the things my first sponsor said to me is, you know, when we get wrapped up in this idea of, well, I don't like this or I don't want to, My first sponsor said. When somebody when's the last time somebody asked your opinion about what you like or don't like?

Whoa. But never, I said,

he said. That's the point.

Nobody really cares if you like it or not. They just want you to sober up and do what you need to do so you can come back and be a part of their lives in a contributing member of society. Because obviously I destroyed all the relationships in my life. People didn't like having me around,

right? You know, when you're drinking a quart, a quart and a half a day, you know, it's, it's not a pretty picture. And pretty much everybody had signed me off and didn't want to watch me die.

You know, that's my experience with this thing.

So when we get to the truth, we get some freedom.

Umm, if you read on a little further,

they start to describe on that same page

it says if his own doctor is willing to tell him that he is alcoholic, so much the better. You know, my doctors told me I was alcoholic, but I didn't believe him.

I didn't understand what I was up against. Again, my mind was telling me the main problem of the alcoholic centers in the mind, and my mind was telling me

that I wasn't an alcoholic, that I just had some some trouble around drinking. You know this is after a near death experience, right? Wow,

you know I one of the one of the things my sponsor asked me to do was look up the word delusion

in the dictionary.

Because delusion isn't just an idea that you might have wrong. Delusion is a complete

separation from reality,

you know. Is it possible that you're in deeper trouble than you think you are? Now, what's the good news about realizing you're in that deeper trouble? It will compel you

to come to believe.

It drove me when I understood it, 100 and some days sober, that I was in way more trouble around this thing than I believed I was. I got on my niece and I asked for help and I went to that sponsor and I said, what can I do with this? And I wrote that inventory and I did that fifth step. And I spent some time with six and seven and then I made a list

and at 120 do 2 days sober, I did my First Amendment. Now I've got an interesting story about that. And this is just my experience, OK, just me. I don't want anybody to think this is going to happen to them. But on the 1st Amend, I did, you know, I'm looking for the Attaboy and God bless. And you know, Gee whiz. And the person that I did the amend with told me,

that's great, you're sober now, go away and stay away.

And I was shattered.

I was just absolutely shattered by this. I was just, oh, I went to my spot. Oh God, He told me to go away. Oh, and he and I said, what am I going to do? And he said, you're going to go away. Stay away and go to the next name on your list.

Really.

Yep.

Wow, see, that's how immature I was at the time.

I didn't realize that, you know, the truth is, is that I might not be able to repair all the damage. I'd made my effort

and they didn't accept it and they get to not accept it now. My experience with most of my amends has been completely different. My Second Amendment was great. I, you know, I and I'm continuing to make amends as we speak. I had a lot of financial amends to make in five years downrange. I'm still digging out of that. I've dugout an amazing amount already.

You know, you'd be surprised. You start doing the right thing and this thing can progress very quickly. But that was just my experience that that, you know, I was going in there looking for the attaboy and and I didn't get one.

And it was a great experience because it taught me that, you know what, I just need to do the right thing today.

And how other people react to it is either, you know, that's, that's up to them. I can't put expectations on.

So I, I began the immense process and, and you know, that's when life started to change for me because my, at this point, my sponsor encouraged me to get out and start to help people. He said, you know, you've got some experience with this book. So it, you know, four months sober, I'm sponsoring people

now. You know, when you get in recovery circles, you might hear some things like, you know, don't sponsor too soon. Here's the truth. The truth is, is if you have worked the steps

and gone out and made some amends and are practicing the disciplines of 1011 and 12, you're ready to sponsor. Not until

a page 164 says obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. Page 97 says helping others is the foundation stone of your recover recovery. Page 89 says carry this message to other Alcoholics. Again on page 89, life will take on new meeting. To watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness valves

vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends. This is an experience you must not miss.

I don't miss that today. I get to be a part of all that today as a result of my willingness and my open mindedness to take a look at maybe I was just in a little bit more trouble than I thought I was around my alcoholism. I've got a number of guys I sponsor sitting right here in front of me. I've got members of a of a group that I love called the Firing Line that I attend.

I've got Adam back there

and I get to get up to a podium at 9:00 on a Saturday morning when normally I'd have been drunk and share my experience with a recovery process. And it's a process,

but it begins with maybe the realization that you might be in a little more trouble than you think you are.

And it, maybe you need some help from a power greater than yourself and some people who have experience with what recovery looks like.

Umm, alcoholism is a fatal disease. Drug addiction is fatal. I happen to work in the treatment business for, for a, for a couple of different facilities. And I get to see kind of the I get to see what the success, the success stories are, which are people who go out and connect to a fellowship, who understand that a clinical treatment is just the beginning of a process of recovery.

And I get to see the people who think, OK, now I'm better. I got 60 days under my belt. I'm going to go out and, you know, get a job. We call it the alcoholic trifecta. It's the job, the car and the girl or the job, the car in the apartment, whichever you know, whichever you want.

But they don't treat the internal condition. And what is that internal condition? Page 52 describes it. Page 52 has a description of the spiritual malady

that I suffer from alcoholism. We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply to our human problems this same readiness to change our point of view, our human problems. Wait a minute. My problem's drinking, right?

My problems? Booze. I've quit drinking,

I stopped, I got separated from alcohol. I'm OK now.

No, not my experience.

Were we having trouble with personal relationships? Well, I wasn't living in a house with at this time with 20 other people I couldn't stand.

And it wasn't them, it was me.

And so, yeah, I was having trouble with personal relationships. We couldn't control our emotional natures. Are you on that roller coaster? One day it's OK, the next day it's brutal. I've got some of this going on in my life right now

around my health conditions.

We couldn't control our emotional natures. We were a prey to misery and depression.

Oh God this sucks

man. You know, 40 days sober and life just ain't treating me right,

you know, And then and then you know, where do I end up? In front of a psychiatrist that wants to prescribe me medication for depression. And I'm not clinically depressed. I'm an alcoholic. Now.

If you have clinical depression, take the meds. I'm not a doctor. I'm not up here to comment on that. I'm just saying that in my case, that wasn't true. What I had was alcoholism. I had an acute case of alcoholism, and at the root of alcoholism is the spiritual malady that I'm describing.

We had a feeling of uselessness. Yeah. What's this all about? What am I doing here? Right. Jeez,

we were full of fear. Yeah. I couldn't get out of my room most days without, you know, some sort of motivation like hunger or something,

you know, some basic need I had to fill. I'm I'm. It's the truth.

Yeah, but I'm an alcoholic, folks. Trust me,

we were unhappy. Yeah, no shit,

right.

You know, look around the faces it I work in, like I said, two treatment centers and every once in a while you'll get that guy who who comes through the door and he's boy, I'm happy to be here. And I'm like, was this Plan A?

Because if it was, let's talk to the Planning Commission,

you know, for me, it will. Plan A wasn't landing in treatment and going to Alcoholics Anonymous. That was a little further down the list.

Matter of fact, it wasn't on the list. Now I'm grateful I'm here. By the grace of a loving, kind, merciful God, I get to stand at this podium and share my story with you. But if you had asked me when I was 15 years old what I want to do, showing up in a in a treatment, wasn't it

OK? Just truth again. Truth.

The truth will set you free, folks,

but it ain't always pleasant.

We were unhappy. We couldn't seem to be of real help to other people. Yeah, I couldn't find my rear end in a phone booth.

Was not a basic solution of these bedevilments more important than whether we should see newsreel of lunar flight? And that's a reference to earlier in the book. But what it means is, is can I have enough? You know, was not a basic solution of these problems more important than my external conditions, you know, and I wasn't happy. Dustin's back there, crossing his arms and getting nervous because I might run over.

But,

and I'm gonna run over just to bug him a little,

but what I want to share with you is, is that my my recovery didn't begin until I had an understanding of what I was up against. And if, if you can, especially the people on these sides of the rooms for those of you who are are are new or coming back to

for everybody in the room,

you know, take a minute today to sit in the quiet and consider,

wow, is it possible that maybe there's some of this that I'm just not aware of and it really is looking to take me closer to a drink or a drug

And then access that higher power And don't just ask them to keep you sober. Ask him what you can do for others.

Because see, the joy of what I get to do today is this. I do have some guys here that I sponsor and I sponsor a bunch of guys in AA. Why keep me out of here,

right? That's why I do it.

I take people through the big book. I get to be a part of a lot of things that I never understood. I was completely unemployable at the end of my using and and I, I currently have two jobs,

one for the Salvation Army and and one for another organization. And,

you know, they've seen fit to give me the responsibility to oversee floors with 30 to 40 people on them.

Well, that's a heck of a lot further than walking out of that hospital that day

and getting a bottle when I'm dying.

Alcoholics Anonymous has taken me all over the country

for big book seminars and I get to travel with this wonderful lady friend of mine who has the same sort of passion that I do for recovery. And I do have a passion for this,

but I believe that that on the subject of recovery that that it's this.

Get a sponsor.

Find a sponsor that's rooted in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Work the 12 Steps

and until you do that, don't give me reasons why it can't happen for you, because then you're giving me an opinion about an experience you haven't had. And I spent a lot of time doing that. You know, if you don't believe it works and you haven't done it, I don't want to hear about it.

You know, I'm kind of hard that way. My sponsees get

well. Don't give me an opinion about an experience you haven't had.

I would encourage everybody in here

to take a look at at where their alcoholism is today

and access that higher power and to practice the principles in these steps, especially if you're downrange a little bit. 10:11 and 12:00

and get out there and help others. You know what they did here today. And I just want to express my gratitude to the New Beginnings alumni people back there at the table, to Dustin, to Gil, who runs this place and it to anybody that works in a facility like this. Where would we be without places like this? I know where I'd be and see, you know, it's easy for me to say I'll be, I'd be dead.

But

worse than that would have been to live another 20 years in the hell that I was in at the end of my using. Dad would have been OK with me then.

Um, so you know, enjoy the rest of the day. If you have any questions about what I said or or want to talk to to me about it, I'm I'm more than willing to have a conversation with you

and thank you.